Heroes of the Zeroes: The Pledge

Heroes of the Zeroes is Nick Rogers’ daily, alphabetical look back at the 365 best films of 2000-2009.

“The Pledge”
Rated R
2001

A 2001 whodunit about a detective driven under by an ill-advised oath, Sean Penn’s “The Pledge” carved out a violent, hellish, dread-filled corner of anxiety and agony in America’s southwest.

It also represented a waning opportunity to see the real Jack Nicholson — here showcasing the vintage versatility that made him an institution, not just his silver-haired, smart-assed, preening horn-dog persona.

Not even a “surprise” retirement party escapes Jerry Black, an investigator brave-facing his march toward irrelevance. (Nicholson synthesizes feigned sincerity and suppressed rage into the line, “You shouldn’t have, but you did, and it hits me deep.”)

A girl’s mutilated corpse discovered during the party feels like destiny to Jerry — one last wrong to right and, more destructively, a point to prove. Jerry swears on his soul’s salvation to the victim’s puritanical mother that he’ll find the killer — a vow that will lead only to misery and madness.

Jerry’s crackup isn’t instantly consumptive, as second-act serenity seems like more than a postcard distraction. But Penn’s canny camerawork ominously plays up damnation overtones, and Jerry reopens his investigation, envisioning himself as an earthbound emissary of Hans Christian Andersen’s poetic “Angel.”